TRANSPORTATION TUESDAY: Mclaren P11 Supercar

One of the world’s best Formula One teams is set to unveil its latest creation: an environmentally friendly supercar. McLaren says the P11, which will feature a regenerative breaking system and v8 diesel-powered engine with a scorching top speed of over 200mph, will be the greenest vehicle in its class. But we can’t help but wonder, will it really live up to the eco hype?

McLaren is pitting its P11 against the likes of the Ferrari F430 Scuderia and the Porsche GT2. The ultra lightweight supercar is expected to accelerate from 0-60mph in less than four seconds, and come equipped with increased safety equipment. Now, these are all big claims, but is it truly accurate to call this vehicle ‘green’? Sure, the P11 may seem that way when compared to its supercar competitors. But when you consider its price tag—150,000 pounds, or roughly $218,000—and the other cars available on the market right now (the Tesla Roadster, for instance), one does have to wonder whether the P11 is the best McLaren could come up with.

The P11 will be formally unveiled in the Los Angeles Motor Show later this year. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

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8 Comments

porsche917June 23, 2009 at 6:18 pm

This story is way off! The p11 will NOT have a diesel! And this car is Not designed to be “GREEN” Thankfully, Mclaren wouldn’t do something like that. I just wish it had the same 6.1 litre v-12 from the 1994 F1. That was a fire-breather!!!

bryackMay 4, 2009 at 11:22 am

I believe that should be “regenerative braking” not “regenerative breaking”. A universally applicable system for regenerative breaking would truly change the world.

Stig, I am not trying to imply that exotic cars are causing all those deaths each year. Fast is a relative term though and most cars on the roads today are oversized and overpowered realitive to their intended use. “Hyper cars” as you call them may not be the root of the problem, but overuse of cars in general is.

The StigApril 22, 2009 at 5:01 pm

^ What? Yeah, it’s all those multi millionaires running around causing those 40,000 fatalities every year in their Ferrari’s and Lamborghini’s. Your comments about not needing fast cars on the road are irrelevant. The production numbers of exotic cars are so low that I just can’t see why a handful of hyper cars are causing all the problems in the world. Some people want them, can afford them, and companies like McLaren are there to provide it for them. End of story. McLaren is trying a different take with this one, and that’s cool. We’ll see how it pans out.

But I don’t think for a second that anyone buys their ‘green’ story with this car.

James@bicycledesignApril 22, 2009 at 10:55 am

Green or not, overpowered sports cars are not a good idea. We currently have over 40,000 traffic fatalities per year on US roads, so we don\’t need more fast cars like this or the Tesla. I wouldn\’t care if they ran on water and had no ill environmental effects; they are still contributing to the transportation problems that our obsession with single occupancy vehicles had led us to.

dfragApril 22, 2009 at 7:10 am

just because a car has a diesel engine does not make it \”dedicated to unnecessary fossil-fueled speed\” diesel engines were originally designed to run on peanut oil and will run on almost any oil, natural or synthetic. hell I\’ve even seen one run on used chip pan oil. And I\’ll bet that that thing will still be greener than any tesla or prius.

firstly the tesla uses huge amounts of nickle for the battery\’s, that nickle needs to be mined out of the ground at grate expense. nickle is a highly poisonous metal, excessive exposure to which will kill a human let alone any creature living near the mine\’s. nickle needs to be transported around the world to reach the places where its going to be processed and turned into battery\’s and then transported to where it\’ll be fitted to a car.

The shelf life of a nickle battery means that after 3 or 4 years of heavy use it\’ll need replacing and that also means that the battery\’s you take out will need to be disposed of responsibly (is some one going to make sure that tesla users are going to do that?) and to top it all off the world is rapidly running out of nickle because its used in nearly every laptop and mobile phone.

what happens if a tesla springs a leak, like to explain to the local community the reason things keep dying every time they lick that funny looking puddle on your driveway.

and well the prius’s mpg is worse than a diesel powered VW Lupo, all of its parts are made and sourced all over the world and then transported to the factory where its out together but before its even started to be assembled it\’s already got a larger carbon foot print that it would of ever created in its life.

i’m not really anti-tesla, its the best example of an electric sports car i just think they need to rethink the battery. but i am anti-prius, it is not a green car it is a fashion accessory!

icehawk219April 21, 2009 at 10:20 am

While this is definitely a pretty car, you can’t compare a “green” McLaren to the likes of a Tesla. McLaren isn’t trying to make a car that can get 100mpg or is all electric. these are cars multi-millionaires buy and keep in their garage 360 days out of the year and only drive on special occasions. You can’t buy a Scuderia, GT2 or any McLaren with the expectation of driving them around on a daily basis, so mpg and being a hybrid doesn’t really apply to them the same way it does to a Civic, or a Prius. I’m sure these companies will eventually reach that point but they aren’t there quite yet.

You also have to remember that a lot of the people who buy cars like McLarens are people who live in the Hamptons, or in a Villa in the south of France. You can\\\’t drive these cars very often in those kinds of locations. There’s a very good reason Tesla is targeting California with the Roadster. Not just because there’s a lot of big names there, but because the weather there will let those big names make use of it a lot more often then if all the rich guys in New York bought one.

Of course it’s not green! However impressive it may be for a diesel, no attempt to lighten it, fit it with solar panels, or make it out of hemp will compensate for the fact that it is a machine dedicated to unnecessary fossil-fueled speed.

I suppose it’s better than what came before, but come back with an electric version or a compressed air supercar, then we’ll talk.